Entertainment

Shannon Charnock at the Arts Project February 22, 2012. The 22-year-old Londoner is starting her own local theatre company, See Productions, and will be challenging audiences with ethics-centred plays from Canadian writers. CHRIS MONTANINI\LONDONER\QMI AGENCY

Shannon Charnock wants to ­challenge your perception of morality, and she plans on using Canadian theatre to do it.

The 22-year-old Londoner and Western University student plans on pursuing a second degree in arts management, but not before introducing herself to the local theatre scene with See Productions.

Charnock said she hopes to tackle tough ethical questions with her foray into local theatre and that there's plenty of material from our own backyard that qualifies.

"The kind of theatre I'm interested is the kind that broadens people's perceptions," she said. "I wanted to see some more ethically challenging theatre in this city. And to get my theatre company to have an emphasis on Canadian drama as well because I think there's a lot of very powerful Canadian drama that doesn't get showcased that often."

Very suitably, Charnock's first production will be Michael Redhill's Goodness, taking place at the ARTS Project March 14-17.

Born in the United States but raised in Toronto, Redhill is a Jewish-Canadian playwright, author and poet.

Goodness, which won "Best of Edinburgh" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006, follows a main character also named Michael Redhill ¬¬- a version of the playwright, Charnock theorizes - who embarks on a personal journey into his Polish roots. After struggling to learn about relatives who suffered through the Holocaust, the character meets a former prison guard with intimate knowledge about an unnamed genocide that challenges his own perceptions of right and wrong.

He learns the leader behind the genocide has been put on trial, accused of murdering his ethnically different lover, but may get off on the premise that he's suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

"I read it a few years ago in one of my drama classes and fell in love with it," Charnock said. "This play makes it clear that nothing's black and white. It really forces you to judge your own morals, your own principles."

The Goodness cast includes some fresh faces and experienced veterans. Lead character Redhill will be played by newcomer Stephen Trim, joined on the other end of the spectrum by Margo Stothers, for example, who plays Althea, the prison guard. Other cast members include Sam Sewell as young Althea, Kevin Milne as Stephen Part, David Heap as Mathias Todd and Kalina Hada-Lemon as Julia Todd.

"It's been a huge learning experience," Charnock said. "I went into (producing Goodness) really naively. It was hard getting a cast together for this show because ... the age range is so (wide.) But I finally did and I'm really, really happy with what I have."

Charnock finished a bachelor's degree in English at Western before enrolling in the university's Certificate in Theatre Arts program, where she received credits for hands on experience with productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

"That was a really enlightening experience that made me decide I really wanted to do this with my life," Charnock said. "It was less theoretical. We got to do some acting exercises and we really looked at things (more) through a performance lens than a literary lens."

Tickets to Goodness, $12 for students and $15 for adults, are available at The ARTS Project or at the door.